Lag

Lag is a term used by players to refer to a prolonged delay in time between the input of the player and the response of the client. Many different factors contribute to the presence of lag in Mabinogi. These many factors may confuse and frustrate players as to the specific cause of their lag, as lag is a very large factor on game play.

The amount of lag that one has determines how well a player will do in regular combat, Battle Tactics, survivability, and the advantage that one Player has over another Player (PvP) or monster. Sources of lag manifest themselves client-side, network-side, and/or server-side.

In-Game Lag Tests

There many unofficial ways to simply test your lag in-game. Usually the lag in-game is almost always a combination of client-side, network-side, and server-side lag, so determining the cause(s) of your lag can be difficult from just in-game tests. However, it is very useful in determining the amount of actual lag that you have. Actual lag may be correlated with ping due to server and network latency of your location, however, actual lag is only minimally affected by the delay in ping to server. For example, a person who pings 120ms to a Mabinogi server, without lag fixes, may experience a short delay when trying to use a skill, and if this delay is even partly noticeable, the delays (up to 400ms every time) are usually far greater than the average human reaction time, which is around 200ms.

When there is little to no lag, one should be able do to these common things (generally, the less the skills fade out or delay the less lag you have):

Icebolt + Firebolt or + Lightning Bolt hotkey Spam: press at least two hotkeys as fast as possible, you should not hear a delay at all between magic loading sounds, and your skill bubble does not fade out even when changing.

Rank F-A Lightning Spam: This requires you to attack an opponent first with one charge bolt and keep them from moving (or at least from hitting you) as you attack them with lightning, and your skill bubble does not fade out at all even when reloading.

Rank F-A Firebolt on Bears: use Firebolt continuously on bears at a knock-back distance (800), you should be able to keep them back indefinitely as long you have mana, and your skill bubble does not fade out at all even when reloading.

Weapon Switch Key Spam: use two bows or a bow and kite shield on the Main and Aux. slots, you should be able to hear the switching sounds at approximately 6-8 times per second, as long as you press the weapon switch as fast as possible.

Healing Spam: when you click as fast as possible, you should be able to heal someone at around 4 times per second.

Client-Side

Client-side lag is influenced two ways, either by hardware configuration, or software configuration. It is important to determine which configuration is causing one's lag in order to fix the cause of the lag.

Determines how fast your computer can process the graphics of Mabinogi, mostly regarding its FPS (Frames Per Second) rate.

The FPS also determines the least time you can perform your skills and action in addition to the time dictated by the server, in addition to how visually smooth it can run. Most recent computers should not make the minimum skill time noticeable in normal areas.

Hardware Configuration

Processor

The speed of the computer's main processor (or processors) and graphics processor (or processors) determines the initial FPS. The initial FPS is usually the time when Mabinogi runs the fastest: when one has just logged onto Mabinogi after turning on one's computer. This determines the minimum amount of time needed to switch channels, to log on, or to change maps. This also determines how fast your computer can process the interface of Mabinogi (e.g. Chat Log, Friends List).

RAM

The amount of RAM a computer has determines how smoothly Mabinogi will run over time. Insufficient RAM will slowly lower FPS or even stop it over time due to increased paging to and from the hard drive, eventually causing the game to become unplayable in crowded or graphics-intensive areas. Remember that integrated graphics shares RAM for video with system RAM, which determines the amount graphics a computer can handle in a certain area. For example, your FPS will dramatically slow down in crowded or graphics-intensive areas such as Dunbarton and Qilla Base Camp if you have insufficient system RAM and/or video RAM.

Software Configuration

Graphics Card Drivers

Although it is commonly recommended to update your driver to the newest possible, this is not necessarily optimal for Mabinogi. Since Mabinogi is a relatively old game, older drivers on old computers that give fewer graphics features tend to boost the FPS in Mabinogi, especially on integrated graphics. Thus downgrading video drivers may be an option to make Mabinogi run well on older hardware for which newer drivers hurt performance.

Un-checking, and setting everything to the lowest possible setting will increase one's FPS.

Reserved Attack - Once, will decrease your reaction time and decrease the number of clicks needed to execute an attack by storing clicks for future execution. This applies to Magic Attacks, Ranged Attacks, and even Normal Attacks. For example, one can execute an intuition like move and counter smash with a normal attack even without clicking. Once is a better choice than Multiple or Off because it does not allow you to store too many clicks that causes automatic execution and it allows a reserved click to offset some lag that would require you to click more than once.

Solutions

On dedicated graphics cards, there should be control panel options to lower graphics and improve performance (you should make all settings to the lowest possible or turn them off).

On integrated graphic cards, you may be able to increase how much RAM is allotted to the graphics processing unit. This would be recommended if you had plenty of RAM.

Network-Side

The result when one tries to manually (by pressing hotkey) call Ranged Attack during "fade-out" or network delay. This does not happen when there is no lag.

The in-game "lagometer" displays green (0-50ms), yellow (51-499ms), and red (499+ms) to give a rough idea how much lag one has. It was removed from Mabinogi NA to keep from deterring play (but it is still in Mabinogi CN and Mabinogi JP clients).

Large packets can cause a delay between skills and actions, causing too long of a delay to play Mabinogi properly, sometimes called "latency." Great geographical distances found throughout North America require more routers, nodes, and transport media to move these large packets, further worsening latency.

Note that skills should never gray out or fade when changed during loading time. For example, a lag-free ranged attack never fades until one stops.

Determines the reaction time and the number of clicks necessary in order to interact between the server and client. (For example, it should always take only one click to fire an Icebolt even on Reserve Attack - Not Used).

Ping: Connection Type, Location and ISP

Note: Currently you may not be able to ping the servers. Use tracert instead.

The connection type partially determines your average ping above a minimum ping. There are minimum pings for a certain location solely due to the distance between the client and server and the length path of the Internet backbones. For example, minimum ping times for players in the northeastern area of the US is ~80ms. This means that different ISPs (Internet Service Providers) transfer your data through different paths, and your ping is dependent on the quality and length of the path. Your ping contributes to skill latency, but only minimally. Wireless connections can be used to play Mabinogi, but the slightest instability can cause increased latency and decreased throughput if one is not close enough to an access point.

Pinging Mabinogi Servers

Click Start

Type cmd in "Start Search" or in the "Run" dialog

Type the following in the "cmd.exe" window:

Ping mabinogi.nexon.net

Use:

Ping mabinogi.nexon.net -t

to monitor the stability of your ping.

Pinging "mabinogi.nexon.net" will suffice for general relative lag (for comparison with other locations). It is approximately the same as pinging the individual channels. However, the channels do have their own IPs. Unfortunately, Nexon has blocked Ping on their servers. In order to measure latency on the individual channels, you'll need to use a third party program with the IPs listed below.

Note: The ping determines relatively how much skill latency you have. It may or may not be affected by lag fixes.

Traceroute

Performing a traceroute can be used to diagnose problems to determine where packet loss or ping spikes occur during the packet route. It shows can show how long the packet travels before reaching the destination.

Use

tracert mabinogi.nexon.net

or other IPs to determine where the lag comes from. If you see unusually high pings in the list, that place is the most likely cause of lag.

Bandwidth

Bandwidth determines how many connections can be opened or how much data can be sent through at once. If your connection speed has low bandwidth and you share the connection with another person, that person may take all of your available bandwidth, delaying your packets from being sent on time.

Solutions

The first two solutions will limit the packet size and increase transfer frequency, thus decreasing throughput. As a result, using any of the solutions will decrease your maximum download speed.

Disabling Nagle's Algorithm

Nagle's algorithm, named after its creator, John Nagle, is a process in which data packets are packed together to conserve bandwidth. In most situations, data packets are sent 1 byte at a time, which overloads bandwidth and decrease throughput. Nagle's algorithm helps prevent this by packing them together. The downside to this is data flow needs to be stopped long enough to collect enough data to form one packet. This usually takes around 200 ms. Though seemingly small, this delay ends up affecting your gaming experience or any real time application by choking the flow of data, therefore causing lag. For gamers, this process is obsolete and is actually detrimental. Disabling it yields better latency at the expense of bandwidth.

Most games bypass this algorithm, so disabling it will not affect these games. However, Mabinogi does not bypass it. Therefore it is highly recommended to disable it to improve response time, especially when attempting to do a battle tactic requiring a "lag-free" connection.

Warning: Disabling use of Nagle's Algorithm in Windows requires use of the Registry Editor (Regedit). A lot of critical system information is kept in the Windows Registry. Improper or incorrect changes to the registry could disable the operating system altogether. Instructions must be followed exactly, only making the listed changes.

3. In this category will be some folders. The folder in question is the network adapter. This contains information on the network: IP address, gateway, etc. If you are completely confused on which one it is you may add the following line to each folder.

4. Add a DWORD named TcpAckFrequency unless one is already in there. (It is case sensitive)
-Add a DWORD by right clicking anywhere on the window.

5. Set the value of the keyword to 1 to disable Nagle's Algorithm. Changes will automatically take effect, so change channels or relog to update the game session if logged in.
(Exception: if Windows Vista is still installed on your device and manual updating is in effect, check for SP1 on Windows Update ATER making the change, then install and RESTART your computer. Either way, you'll have to restart anyway until SP1 is present on your device.)

MSMQ is normally not enabled. The following should be done in addition to the above if MSMQ is enabled:

Make sure to have Service Pack 1 installed. (Automatic Updates)

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.

2. Locate and then click (or add it if you don't have) the following registry subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSMQ\Parameters

3. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.

4. Type TCPNoDelay for the name of the DWORD, and then press ENTER. (Case sensitive)

5. Right-click TCPNoDelay, and then click Modify.

6. In the Value data box, type 1 to turn off the Nagle algorithm.

7. Click OK, and then quit Registry Editor.

Lowering your Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU)

Lowering the MTU can be used in conjunction with disabling Nagle. There are two ways to change your MTU, via software, or hardware.

The lower you set your MTU, the less skill lag you will have. It is recommended that you start at 386 and make it lower to see if there is an improvement. Make sure your MTU is an even number divisible by 4. Typically, on a low-speed connection, you will not see any improvement or it will become worse.

Warning: Lowering your MTU too much will decrease your throughput (speed) dramatically. Do NOT change below 1500 when not necessary. Although you will be able to use skills faster, you may be more prone to occasional lag spikes or disconnection due to a severely limited connection speed from your computer, especially on wireless connections. It is recommended that one finds a balanced MTU for your connection speed. You must able to change your MTU back to 1500 readily when you need to use an HTTP connection.
The default MTU is 1500 for Ethernet, but PPPoE adds an additional 8 byte overhead, bringing the MTU for networks that use PPPoE (most DSL networks) to 1492, please ensure that you know what type of connection you are using, as this means your default value can fluctuate and issues could occur if you go over your default MTU threshold.

The minimum MTU that your TCP/IP connection can function with Mabinogi is 48 MTU, which is allows skills to cast/load/change faster than at 386 MTU most of the time. Lowering your MTU to 48 is not recommended unless you have high ranked connection speed. (IE: Optical Fiber)

If slow connection bothers you, consider making Batch files, one to lower the MTU for Mabinogi, and one to reset it afterwards.

Furthermore, Windows Vista/7/8.x/10 handle MTU values internally, so the old registry methods will be duly ignored by the OS as a direct result. However, you can still netshell the desired MTU values into a persistent state as a workaround for this limitation. Full details can be found at http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/vistaMTU.htm (or you can use the following procedures):

4. If you're already in-game, simply log out of your session and log back in (or simply change channels if you're in a hurry, excluding pre-SP1 Windows Vista which again requires a full system restart).

Some connections may not follow the standard names. To see your current connection name, right-click the network icon and click 'Network and Sharing Center'. In the first section, second row is your current connection name. Remember you must enter the exact name for it to work.

Change MTU on Hardware

This is not recommended for wireless connections.

This will affect ALL connections and everyone that is using it. Will decrease the overall bandwidth of all connections dramatically, but still has the same effect if you don't wish to change your PC settings.

Server-Side

The result when one tries to manually call Elf Ranged Attack during "elf lag." As you can see, "elf lag" persists long after the "draw arrow" animation. The character is completely immobilized during this type of delay.

Server-side lag occurs on the server when it is unable to handle the large amount of data being sent at once to the server by many clients. In extreme cases the server can overload and crash, requiring a long amount of time before it can be online again. There is nothing you can really do about server-side lag except to wait it out and/or move to a less busy channel.

Causes your character (but not your environment) and everyone around you to freeze and unable to use skills or actions for a long period of time.